by K L Clare
I fell asleep on his chest, but when I woke he was in the chair with his laptop, stuffing half a sandwich into his mouth. Documents and newspapers were spread about the floor and hanging from the chair.
“I kept you from your work.”
“Stay beneath that blanket until I’m finished.” He looked up over the screen and winked.
I wrapped the sheet around myself and headed for the bathroom. My stomach rumbled before I could get the door closed.
“You’ll eat, woman,” he called through the door.
I was starved and gladly ate while watching Will harness his intense physical energy and apply it to his intellect. He was as intelligent as he was strong. After a call during which he spoke only French—God, that was sexy—and another to Ethan, he stood and stretched. The movements were graceful and majestic; he was a magnificent lion.
“I have something for you.” He gathered two old books from behind the chair and set them next to me on the bed.
“What’s this?”
“Look through these and see if anything stands out. Don’t push me for an explanation until you’ve done that.” He countered his firm words with a soft kiss. “I need to go down to the gym and run. I’ll be back.”
* * *
The books were heavy and quite old. One was a colossal tome covered in worn, brown leather with black straps that buckled to hold its contents securely within. There was a golden three-budded cross made of tarnished metal fastened to the cover by rivets. The same metal was used for decorative corner pieces.
The other book was smaller and less ornate. It was covered in black leather dappled with shades of gray caused by time and wear. Aged red satin ribbons dangled from within its pages. I opened to the first ribbon-marked page. The print was small, imperfect, and faded. I skimmed most of it but read the last few paragraphs more carefully.
The rightful young Plantagenet king, Edward V, and his brother, Prince Richard, Duke of York, were held captive in the Tower of London by their uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, after the death of their father, King Edward IV. It is known that the boy king met his death in the Tower by natural causes, whilst the prince was removed in secret a fortnight thereafter.
Prince Richard remained in exile in the South of France, under the protection of French kings, where the prince’s own royal lineage began. He took a wife of noble blood, and she bore him three sons and one daughter.
Will had already explained it to me. He didn’t need to provide proof. He’d given his word, and I believed him. But there it was in black-and-white, journalized centuries ago.
I picked up the giant tome and unfastened its buckles. It was full of genealogical charts, some with pages of explanation, some without. I leafed through until I landed on the page of King Edward IV and slid my finger delicately over the decomposing page to Prince Richard’s name. Somehow I still expected his chart to end there.
Prince Richard, Duke of York, my ancestral grandfather, had his own page.
My mind roamed as I allowed my eyes to follow the faded, blotted columns of names down the page until I reached the bottom, where the last generations were more legible in crisp ink. I sucked in a sharp breath but shouldn’t have been surprised by what I found.
My great grandfather dropped his surname and changed our family name to James when he and my great grandmother settled in Connecticut in 1898. He’d been born John James Plantagenet.
Just as overwhelming was the sight of the final names on my family tree, the names of my dead parents, Henry and Elisabeth James. There was a footnote ascribed to my father’s entry.
Henry James was the last-born male heir of the successive patrilineal descent of King Edward IV and his son, Prince Richard. Henry James’s grandchildren, male or female, will not be known as heirs of the throne unless his daughter acquires it as rightful Queen.
Tears threatened, but I pushed them back and summoned anger in their place. I dragged my finger, indelicately this time, from the top of the page to the bottom. They were all gone.
The pain caused by my sister’s death returned and ripped through me. I compelled myself to allow the pain its due, binding myself to the anger.
My throat tightened and I clenched my jaw. My mind swam. I cursed. If it weren’t for that damned footnote, Isobel would be alive, and assassins wouldn’t be hunting me. There had to be another living bloodline stronger than mine. There must be someone else.
I flipped back to King Edward IV’s page. Richard had been his only surviving son. I wondered, what about the king’s brothers?
Of course, there were two, which I should have recalled from my studies. Edward’s youngest brother, King Richard III, had several children, but none who were legitimate had survived. And there was also George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence. George had produced one son and one daughter, but they had been deprived of their legacies after George’s treason. Both were executed as adults by a Tudor king.
The Tudor kings had suffered acute paranoia, which was the cause of those executions. That paranoia was Prince Richard’s fault. Richard hadn’t had the courage to fight for his birthright as his father had done. Instead, he bribed imposters to keep the Tudors busy while he hid among the French like the coward he was. Richard had allowed the burden to fall to his sons—who had bound themselves to a line of warriors named Hastings.
I wondered, then, about George’s grandchildren. Curiosity gripped me, even though the answer wouldn’t change anything.
George’s daughter, Countess Margaret Pole, hadn’t been executed until the age of sixty-eight. She’d had surviving sons and daughters. But it was a matrilineal line, so her family was never hunted by the Order.
I ran my finger along the descending names on the countess’s page. Two generations beneath her was something I hadn’t foreseen. I swallowed hard and whispered the surname. And there, at the very bottom of that page, I found William Richard Hastings.
I tossed the old tome to the foot of the bed as if it had burned my fingers.
21
Will’s body filled the doorway. “You all right, baby?” he asked. The sensual, masculine scent he emanated after a run drifted in and confused my thoughts.
Still, I couldn’t pull my stare from that tome. “These books are legitimate—it’s all true?”
He responded with a low “yes” and remained in the doorway.
I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my chin there. No words came to me.
“You chose to be with me, Elle. Is that what you really want? Now that you know who we are.”
“Yes,” I snapped, whipping around to find his eyes. “You doubt me?”
He stalked from the door and pinned me to the bed. He kissed me like tomorrow would never come. “Your life will be harder with me in it, not easier. And now you know why.”
He was driving at something, but I wasn’t able to piece it together. There was too much banging around inside my skull. And then that kiss . . .
“It’s too late now. I warned you.” He sat up with his legs crossed and pulled me into his lap facing him. I locked my legs around his waist, and he pushed hair away from my face. “It’s too fucking late, Elle.”
“I don’t understand. What are you saying?” I rocked my pelvis forward and back.
“Don’t do that.” His hands stilled my hips, but then his expression softened. “We need to clear this up first.”
“What is it—what are you trying to tell me?” I asked.
“Now you see, it could all be yours. The timing is right with the growing national unrest. I’ll share you with Britain if you choose it, but know that I won’t give you up.”
“What?”
“I’ll find a way to secure your claim, if it’s what you want.”
“That’s crazy, Will. I just want them to leave me alone.”
“You become a greater threat to the Crown if you’re involved with me. My blood and yours together—that strengthens your position.”
“I don’t care.”
“I’ll fight for you either way, because I won’t live without you, but you need to tell me which endgame you desire.” He wasn’t going to let up until I showed intelligible consideration.
“Have you left anything else out?”
“There’s nothing else. I’ll never lie to you.”
I believed him. He was no liar. Will was loyal to the point of obsession. I pulled his face into my hands. “Then why not tell me sooner that you carried the blood?”
“Ethan leads this family. We’re old-school here, Elle. I must respect his position, even when I don’t agree with his decisions. He believes you’ll grow paranoid like your sister.” He stared into me with those beautiful blue eyes.
I winced at both the softness of his eyes and the thought of Isobel. It was an accurate description of her behavior. I thought it was the pregnancy that had changed her, but it was London. Whatever she experienced when she was there with Ethan had altered her.
“What do you believe, Will?”
“I believe you’re strong and growing stronger. It’s a quiet strength, but it’s absolute, and it powers mine. It’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen. In time, you and I will end this madness.”
I was stunned by his words and the confidence behind them. I couldn’t move my gaze from his. I’d never seen myself through someone else’s eyes. Will showed me a woman with fire and determination who was forgiving and capable. No damsel in distress stared back at me. But the truth was, I’d stolen glimpses into the most vulnerable part of his soul, and that powered my strength, emboldened me. I lay my head on his broad shoulder.
“I want a life with you, nothing more, nothing less. Fight for us, Will.”
Will’s response was delivered in an unyielding, breathless kiss. He pulled me firmly into our tantric position, and together we intensified our kiss. My hands were in his hair and his were in mine. His erection jerked between us.
“Elle. Never leave me. Say it,” he commanded.
I whispered close to his ear, “I’ll never leave you.”
He pressed me back against the mattress, and a growl moved up his throat as he removed the silk chemise from my body. “I’m going to taste all of you—every beautiful piece of you.”
I arched my back and pushed closer to him. It was never close enough. I was desperate for him. I would never leave him.
Will lifted and rolled onto his side, his eyes filling with white heat as he burned a path down to my breasts. His gaze slid over the curve of my hips and caressed the length of my legs. “You’re absolutely exquisite,” he said before dropping his head to place a sweet kiss low on my abdomen. “I know it hurts you, but I don’t know how to make it not.”
“You can’t, Will. That’s not something you can fix. It’s only for a moment until you’re fully inside, then it feels incredible.”
I grinned and drew one from him.
His mouth covered mine, and two of his long fingers pushed inside me, and then another, working to stretch me, luring a soft cry from my throat. “You’re always wet when I touch you, baby.” It was true. I wanted him always. I reached for his heavy arousal, and just as quickly he captured my hand and kissed it.
“Don’t push me. I can’t maintain control when you do.”
“Then don’t. I need you.”
“My control is determined by yours, and even then, it hangs by a thread. Let me love you my way, Elle. Submit to me.”
Will’s body was more than strong. The power that coursed through him had to be managed and his need for dominance controlled. My pushing was a show of impatience, not an objection to that need. Because once he kissed me, touched me, there was nothing that could keep me from surrendering to him. There was no help for it.
I nodded. “Do it now, love me now. Please.”
I would plead. I would beg. Whatever it took. The craving for him was deeply rooted in my gut, and it never diminished. He’d planted the seed when he had kissed my hand on that pier.
The sheets rustled, tangling as his body blanketed mine. He kissed me with a smirk on his lips and then dragged his mouth along my skin until he reached his destination. His hands gripped my thighs and pushed them open wide, and he carried on with his original plan—to taste every beautiful piece of me.
As I shattered in ecstasy, he shot up my body. He covered my mouth with his and shoved deep inside me with a savage groan before the contractions of my orgasm finished. He cursed against my neck, his trembling body forced still. “Christ. I’ll never get over that.”
I arched against him, wanting more, grinding my hips as he moved in and out of me. He slowed and commanded my surrender. “Let go, Elle. Move with me, but do not push me.” His authoritative words resonated, forcing me to see what it was he needed. When I submitted, he was able to rein himself in and take us to a beautiful place neither of us had ever been without the other.
He filled me over and over while creating erogenous friction in all the right places. I squeezed him with my knees and cried out against his lips. He was a god—the only man I’d ever had who could shatter me that way. He soon followed me over the edge, my name on his lips sounding like a benediction and a curse.
The roof could have fallen in, the outside world could have ended, but not our world. When Will pulled me to his chest and held me the way only he could, he made it clear that our world would survive, no matter the odds, no matter the cost.
* * *
Dreams plagued me through the night, but it wasn’t the usual murderous faces pursuing me this time. The tome became a living, breathing demon that night, and its contents haunted me.
A scream burst from my lungs. I threw myself to the edge of the bed and sent a lamp crashing to the floor. I kicked and writhed until reality gripped me.
It was Will who reached for me, not his fifteenth-century ancestor.
“Come to me, Elle,” he ordered, his expression worried.
“I’m sorry,” I said as he pulled me back into the safety of his arms.
He caressed my cheek with the back of his fingers. “It’s only a nightmare. . . . They can’t get to you. I won’t let that happen.” Then his tone shifted. “I’ll kill them all first.”
22
Bad Company shouted from the speakers and fifteen balls broke with a sharp crack as Will and I entered the billiard room the following afternoon. Ethan was home from London. It was the first time I’d seen him—with the exception of hearing his voice from behind the door when he interrupted Will and me—since Will carried me from the plane.
Ethan tossed his cue on top of the table and pointed behind the bar, where Thomas lowered the sound system’s volume. “Hello, darlin’,” Ethan drawled before taking my hand and moving his gape from head to toe, finally landing on my eyes. “Christ.”
Will tensed, his fists clenching as he measured his brother’s bad form. I slid my hand up his arm and gave his biceps a light squeeze. Ethan was testing him.
Ethan crossed his arms over his muscular chest and grinned. He was broad like his brothers, though he stood no more than six feet tall. His hair was brown, and he had a rather large knot on the bridge of his nose—maybe it had been broken a few times—but his eyes and grin were indistinguishable from Will’s.
My God, Lissie looked so much like him.
“Glad you’re home, Ethan,” I said. “I’ll leave you two to your business, but at some point I’d like to talk about Lissie.” Ethan nodded, and I released Will’s arm and curled up on the sofa, content to be alone with my thoughts and sketchpad. I could feel them both watching me as they discussed China’s stumbling stocks and its impact on the European market. A nervous client worried it would affect his in-progress leveraged buyout.
It was Lissie’s face reaching out from the paper when Will dropped onto the chesterfield next to me, and I lifted my pencil. “Your talent is remarkable, Elle.” He studied my drawing, wearing a smile that was handsome as hell. “Tell me what you need to start painting again.”
“Late mornings flood
ed with light from the northern sky.”
Ethan sat on the sofa across from ours. “This room, then.” He nodded. “Next week will be quite busy for us, darlin’—in London. I need my brother to get focused and close some business. Hoping you can help me with that.”
I turned to Will. “Take me with you.”
“I’ll be tied up with new investors,” he said, shaking his head.
“Take me. I don’t want to be so far from you all week.”
“You’ll stay here.”
I narrowed my eyes, but since he wasn’t leaving for a few more days, I let it drop. I’d hit him with it again later, when we didn’t have an audience. My brain shifted gears. My mouth opened, closed, opened. Unbidden words finally escaped. “Lissie looks like you, Ethan.”
Ethan jerked his eyes to the floor.
“Is she yours?”
He shrugged.
“It’s likely?”
He made eye contact. “Yeah.”
“Do you plan to tell her—if she’s yours—and raise her? Do you have a plan?”
“Yes. When I confirm she’s mine, I’d like your help telling her.”
I swiftly deflated and withered beneath Will’s arm. Ethan’s response should have pleased me, but instead it sliced into my heart, carving out another piece of wreckage.
“I won’t take her from you, Ellie. She needs you. I know that.”
“You really didn’t know?”
“I never would have abandoned them. Blood is blood, always to be protected, no matter the circumstances.”
He said all the right things. Still, anger whispered in my mind, reminding me how horribly the loss of my sister’s life hurt. I snapped. “Why weren’t you there for Isobel—at the end?”